The Racial Runaround

Justice Anthony Kennedy is getting an unpleasant lesson in the Obama Administration's respect for Supreme Court authority. In an amicus brief for a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rehearing of Fisher v. University of Texas this Wednesday, the Justice Department advised that the appeals court can ignore what the Supreme Court said.

In June, Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for a 7-1 majority in Fisher and remanded it for a rehearing. His opinion stopped short of ending racial preferences in education, but it did emphasize...